A wireless local area network (WLAN) client station, such as a cell phone, laptop, and tablet, communicate on a single wireless band at a time with an access point with which the client station is associated. In some instances, a laptop client may be equipped with one or more WLAN radios which are designed to communicate in one of the multiple supported bands, for example, in either the 2.4 GHz band or the 5 GHz band. The conventional client does not use more than one band at a time. Furthermore, the conventional laptop client typically, by default, uses the same band when it subsequently tries to connect to the access point.
Wireless access points may be equipped with one or multiple radios and may be active simultaneously in two or more bands. For example, some access points are active in both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands simultaneously.